❓TO COLLABORATE OR TO JOINT VENTURE❓
Many musicians love using the word “collaboration,” a scenario that so often results in one party becoming an unpaid subcontractor experiencing minuscule gains for their sole-proprietorship for the sake of another party’s scalability and benefit. Musicians: Be wary of the words, “Let’s collaborate!” Musicians-to-musician interactions: Take time to [...]
Decolonizing Self-Care
Today’s Topic: Summertime Self-care Today’s Tip: Decolonize your self-care routine by taking a thoughtful and holistic approach to mental and physical wellbeing Background Information: Summer is the perfect time to take stock of how you’ve been feeling since the close of the school year. Maybe you are still experiencing [...]
Music Service Learning Update: Week 3
Kindergarten Home-School Help - written by Lea Wehnau This week, we are featuring a project for the younger students! This project called “Kindergarten Home-School Help” was requested by a mother named Ms. Rippley. Ms. Rippley reached out to MSL because she has a kindergarten-aged son at home and [...]
Music Beyond the Classroom: Interview with Composer, Richard Taylor
For the next installment of our "Music Beyond the Classroom" series, we sat down with composer, Richard Taylor. Richard studied composition at the Royal Northern College of Music in the UK, and has been working as a composer ever since. His credits include classical commissions and music [...]
Music Beyond the Classroom: Interview with the band, TeamMate
To kick off our new series, "Music Beyond the Classroom," we caught up with the band, TeamMate, currently based in Los Angeles. TeamMate is a pop rock duo comprised of Scott Simons and Dani Buncher. Scott serves as keyboardist and Dani plays the drums. Both of them sing. [...]
Creativity in the Band Classroom: Start here!
Creating music is one of the four artistic processes that guide the national core standards for music education, yet many teachers report they spend very little time teaching improvisation and composition in their classes and rehearsals. Most of the best-selling band methods emphasize notation and theory over [...]
Reflections on a Teaching Sabbatical
"I'm on sabbatical." I said these words over and over again this past year, explaining to folks why I was suddenly home with my kids and not in the classroom. Since graduating from college in 2007, I have spent every year teaching. Teaching, conducting, writing, studying, planning. [...]